Race-baiting Democrats and the media’s complicity

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the topic of race relations has once again stirred contentious debates amongst liberals and conservatives in this country, considering that the racial make-up of the victims we saw on the news channels broadcasting scenes from New Orleans everyday was/is overwhelmingly black.

The most absurd of the many allegations made against the federal government for their ‘slow response’ to Hurricane Katrina have come from black Democrats in the US Congress, in state governments, and in various ‘leadership’ and spokesperson positions. Their allegation: that the Bush administration, made up of a bunch of ‘racist thugs’, deliberately intended for the response to Hurricane Katrina to be ‘slow’ because the racial make-up of the majority of those affected in La., specifically New Orleans, was/is black. In the minds of these black ‘leaders’ that was the reason for the allegedly slow response. Incompetence on the part of local and state officials did not even enter into the picture. Before I continue, here’s a refresher on some of the comments made by these black Democrat ‘leaders’ in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina:

Rev. Jesse Jackson, media-proclaimed civil rights ‘activist’ and also founder andpresident of the RainbowPUSHCoalition: "There is a historical indifference to the pain of poor people, and black people … we seem to adjust more easily to black pain." As far as relief roles, Jackson wondered: "Why are there no African Americans in that circle? …. How can blacks be left out of the leadership and trapped into the suffering?" – Sept. 2, 2005

Randall Robinson, social justice advocate and author. He wrote the following at the Huffington Post: "Four days after the storm, thousands of blacks in New Orleans are dying like dogs. No-one has come to help them. I am a sixty-four year old African-American. New Orleans marks the end of the America I strove for. I am hopeless. I am sad. I am angry against my country for doing nothing when it mattered. This is what we have come to. This defining watershed moment in America’s racial history. For all the world to witness. For those who’ve been caused to listen for a lifetime to America’s ceaseless hollow bleats about democracy. For Christians, Jews and Muslims at home and abroad. For rich and poor. For African-American soldiers fighting in Iraq. For African-Americans inside the halls of officialdom and out. My hand shakes with anger as I write. I, the formerly un-jaundiced human rights advocate, have finally come to see my country for what it really is. A monstrous fraud. But what can I do but write about how I feel. How millions, black like me, must feel at this, the lowest moment in my country’s story." – Sept. 2, 2005

Representative Sheila Jackson Lee (D-18th District, TX): "Watching family members and others cling to rooftops in Hurricane Katrina, I wonder whether or not the absence of attention [to the recovery effort] is attributable to the loss of a vote in 2000 and 2004." –Sept. 29, 2005

Representative Charlie Rangel (D-15th District, NY): "George Bush is our Bull Connor … if you’re black in this country, and you’re poor in this country, it’s not an inconvenience – it’s a death sentence … If there’s one thing that George Bush has done that we should never forget, it’s that for us and for our children, he has shattered the myth of white supremacy once and for all." –Sept. 22, 2005 – these comments, made a a Congressional Black Caucus townhall meeting were met with wild applause and cheering from those in attendance.

The people who defended Rangel:

Rev. Al Sharpton, media-described black ‘activist’ and former contender for the Democratic presidential nomination: "I think that the statement clearly says that if there is a person that is a symbol that many blacks organize around and organize against in this generation, it would be Bush – as it was with one generation and Connor … Clearly Bush has become that, especially after Katrina," Rev. Sharpton said. "We’ve gone from fire hoses to levees." – Sept. 27, 2005

Representative Major Owens (D-11th District, NY): "Bull Connor didn’t even pretend that he cared about African-Americans. You have to give it to George Bush for being even more diabolical … With his faith-based initiatives, he made it appear that he cared about black Americans. Katrina has exposed that as a big lie … This is worse than Bull Connor." –Sept. 27, 2005

New York City Councilman Charles Barron: "I think that’s an insult to Connor … George Bush is worse, because he has more power and he’s more destructive to our people than Bull Connor will ever be … A KKK without power is not as bad as a George Bush with power … To be a racist in the richest, most powerful country in the world is lethal … Look what he’s doing to communities of color all over the world … He’s a lethal racist … What he did in New Orleans – I mean, that’s worse than what Bull Connor did in his entire career as a racist in the South. Look at these neighborhoods before Katrina hit. Bush made that community what it is. Katrina did the rest, in partnership with Bush, to deliver the final blow." – Sept. 27, 2005

As I blogged earlier this week regarding Rangel’s comments, that story has received little attention in the mainstream press. As of this writing, it still hasn’t, with a majority of stories being written about it having been published either in the NYSun, NYPost, press releases, or conservative opinion outlets, which is in stark contrast to the amount of mainstream articles in which white Republican Tennessee state representative Stacey Campfield’s quotes about the KKK having ‘less racists bylaws’ than the state’s Black Legislative Caucus appear. It should also be noted that not a single Democrat in the US Congress has responded affirmatively to the RNC’s demand for an apology or denunciation.

While black Democrats have been busy demagoguing the federal response to Hurricane Katrina, white race baiting Democrats like DNC Chair Howard Dean have been busy fanning the flames of racism as well on an unrelated issue. Apparently, Mr. Dean – former Governor of Vermont and wildly popular with Dems until the 2004 Democratic presidential primaries – didn’t want to feel left out. To briefly recap an earlier post on this, Dean was responding to the following comments made by former Education Sec. Bill Bennett:

BENNETT: All right, well, I mean, I just don’t know. I would not argue for the pro-life position based on this, because you don’t know. I mean, it cuts both — you know, one of the arguments in this book Freakonomics that they make is that the declining crime rate, you know, they deal with this hypothesis, that one of the reasons crime is down is that abortion is up. Well –

CALLER: Well, I don’t think that statistic is accurate.

BENNETT: Well, I don’t think it is either, I don’t think it is either, because first of all, there is just too much that you don’t know. But I do know that it’s true that if you wanted to reduce crime, you could — if that were your sole purpose, you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down. That would be an impossible, ridiculous, and morally reprehensible thing to do, but your crime rate would go down. So these far-out, these far-reaching, extensive extrapolations are, I think, tricky.

"Bill Bennett’s hateful, inflammatory remarks regarding African Americans are simply inexcusable. They are particularly unacceptable from a leader in the conservative movement and former Secretary of Education, once charged with the well being of every American school child. He should apologize immediately. This kind of statement is hardly compassionate conservatism; rather, Bennett’s comments demonstrate a reprehensible racial insensitivity and ignorance. Are these the values of the Republican Party and its conservative allies? If not, President Bush, Ken Mehlman and the Republican Leadership should denounce them immediately as hateful, divisive and worthy only of scorn.

Hard to believe that after weeks of rampant race-baiting from members of his own party, Mr. Dean had the nerve to make the statement he did above. Apparently, he-of- "yeaaaaaaaaaggggh" – fame isn’t big on cleaning up his own backyard before he starts dipping into someone else’s …. who’s yard is much cleaner, I should add.

Dean, Republican-hater that he is, cleverly tied in Bennett with the President and Republicans in general with the implication being that if the President and/or other top Republicans didn’t denounce Bennett’s comments that they were ‘just as bad’ as Bennett – in other words, they were showing their ‘true racist colors.’ Dean no doubt was and is aware of Republican sensitivity to the allegation of racism and capitalized politically on it. This story got so much attention today that, sadly, the President responded to the political pressure by condemning Bennett’s remarks.

The fact of the matter is, Dean and Rangel and the rest of the people quoted in this post know that what they’re saying isn’t true. Why do they say it, then? It’s simple.

Votes.

As I was in the midst of composing this post, I received a trackback from The Unalienable Right blog in response to another post here and thought to myself that they might as well have just reached into my brain and pulled out what I wanted to say. They nailed the reason why Democrats push these phony assertions about widespread Republican racism onto the American people:

Let’s take the incendiary subject of race out of the Bill Bennett controversy for a moment, and examine the issue in the abstract. Let’s imagine he was having a conversation on the radio about health care, and said something like, “Imagine we implemented a nationalized, single-payer health care system, like Canada or France. That might very well lead to effects X, Y or Z. For those reasons and others, it would be a terrible idea.”

Would anyone take that as Bennett advocating in favor of nationalizing the U.S. health care system? Of course not. Floating a hypothetical, and then discussing potential implications of that hypothetical, doesn’t imply support for the underlying premise. That’s especially true if the speaker concludes by saying the idea is a “reprehensible” one.

So what’s different about the Bennett controversy? The Democrats need a monolithic black vote in order to have any chance of winning elections. If John Kerry had won “only” 70% of the black vote in 2004 instead of 90%, he would have lost in a landslide. Same for Gore in 2000. So stirring up racial division is essential to Democratic electoral prospects.

So any time a chance presents itself for Democrats to wail and moan about how racist Republicans are, they jump at it.

Bang on. The Democrats want to ensure that black Democrats stay Democrats, so they peddle this line about Republican racism ad nauseam to score political points, thereby cementing it in the brains of black Democrats. Republicans fall all over themselves to make something they said that wasn’t wrong to begin with right in order to appease the media, Democrats, and the black community due to their sensitivity on the issue.

This isn’t to say that there aren’t racist Republicans. There are. But by far, as the quotes above show you, the true race baiters in this country are not Republicans, but Democrats, and they do it because they can’t afford to lose black votes. It’s shameless, and as the editors at The Unalienable Right blog also note, it’s despicable as well.

What’s interesting about all this is that it’s the policies of liberal Democrats, starting with the Great Society programs back in the mid 60s that badly affected the black community in this country and helped enable the rise in poverty and illegitimacy that we have seen in the poorer communities for the last 40 years. Yet prominent Democrats continue to claim that it is Republicans who want to keep the black man down, when it’s not Republicans who insult the black community with programs like affirmative action, which says that a black person gets special consideration when they apply for a job or go to college? Don’t believe me? Ask Thomas Sowell or Larry Elder or any other number of black conservatives who will tell you the same thing, and who will also tell you about how many times they’ve been called "Uncle Tom" and many other derogatory names by black Democrats simply for daring to stray from the ‘official’ line.

The media ties into all of this thanks to their one-sided coverage of racially inflammatory comments. To repeat from a prior post, Rangel and co.’s outrageous race-baiting statements about the President got very little attention from the media, while Bill Bennett’s non-scandalous statements were such an ‘outrage’ that the President himself, under political pressure, condemned them. We see this time and time again, how black Democrats (and white Dems who parrot their lines) routinely get away with making such outlandish accusations while white Republicans get called to the carpet and calls for condemnation are generally met with the politically correct response from the President and/or administration officials.

Real discussions could be had in this country about race and how Great Society programs adversely affected the black community upon their implementation but it doesn’t seem like we’ll ever get to have those discussions because anytime a Republican even mentions the word "black" in a sentence, an immediate apology is called for by race-baiters like Jesse Jackson, Charlie Rangel, and Howard Dean because of political considerations. Instead of actually *caring* to discuss the issue of race and how race relations in this country can be improved, and how a second look at welfare and other social programs that hurt more than help the poor in the black community would be beneficial to everyone, it’s more important to Dean and others in the DNC who think like him to score cheap shot political points in order to keep black voters. And the media is complicit in this not only because they think like liberals, but also because they know that alleged Republican ‘racist’ statements sell many more papers than real racist statements made by Democrats.

It is long past time to stand up against this demagoguery and instead of giving in to it, as the White House did Friday, we need to reject it and stand on principle. Caving in only keeps the cycle of racial demagoguery going and only we can stop it.

21 Responses to "Race-baiting Democrats and the media’s complicity"

My wife and I took this up yesterday. Our consensus — all right, there were only two of us, but “consensus” applies even so — was that the Jacksons, Sharptons, and Rangels are aware that their star is on the wane. They have little to no chance of returning to national prominence unless they can foment renewed racial strife. They’ll seize upon the least of opportunities to do so.

In the very beginning, I knew exactly why I started this little website. Having worked in the technology field for 15 years, I did not know how to spell blog until I met James from Hell in a Handbasket. I…

I don’t believe that President Bush is a racist but he is against poor people. As there are a large percentage of blacks living below the poverty line, I can understand their anger at the President and the Republican Party. Since being elected president, the top domestic priority of President Bush and the Republican Party has been cutting taxes for the rich. At the same time they are passing one tax cut after another for the rich, they are cutting funding to programs that help the poor, such as Medicaid, even though there has been an increase in the number of people living in poverty. The minimum wage is at the lowest level it has ever been when adjusted for inflation but there are no plans by the President or Congress to raise it. There are many things President Bush and Congress could do to lower the poverty rate but they don’t do anything. They are only interested in helping the rich. I really think that President Bush and some of the other conservative Republicans don’t have a conscience.

Sister Toldjah said:

What’s interesting about all this is that it’s the policies of liberal Democrats, starting with the Great Society programs back in the mid 60s that badly affected the black community in this country and helped enable the rise in poverty and illegitimacy that we have seen in the poorer communities for the last 40 years.

This is not true. There was a huge decrease in the poverty rate as a result of President Johnson’s Great Society Programs. During the 1960’s the poverty rate fell from 22% to 13%. As a result of programs such as Medicaid, infant mortality rates among the poor dropped by one-third. The percentage of families living in substandard housing fell from 20% to 11%. If you look at the chart below you will see that over a 40 year period, the biggest decrease in the poverty rate came during President Johnson’s administration:

The pattern of incorrect accusations continue. How can you possibly know what is in Bush’s head? Conservatives believe that it is better to teach an able-bodied person how to fish rather than give him fish. The liberal will then say “how cold hearted”.

Brian disengenuously wrote, “As there are a large percentage of blacks living below the poverty line, I can understand their anger at the President and the Republican Party.”

You mean predominantly in BLUE areas that have been ruled by Democrats for decades. Lets then extrapolate that Democrats in general want more poor people and they want them to be African American. That would be RAISING the level of debate from what you do. /end sarcasm.
Brian incorrectly wrote, “has been cutting taxes for the rich.” No. Every income tax payer got a tax break. Since 96% of income taxes are paid by the top 50% of income earners it would be very hard to give ALL income tax payers a tax cut (to help the economy) and not have those who pay 96% of taxes get a cut.

Are you feeling silly yet?

Brian unfactually wrote as typical liberals do, “they are cutting funding to programs that help the poor, such as Medicaid”. OK, Please tell everyone what federal spending on Medicaid was in 2000 versus 2004. I’ll let you know you know again that you were factually incorrect. These factually incorrect beliefs help you form thoughts that you know what is in Bush’s mind.

Brian in error wrote, “but there are no plans by the President or Congress to raise it.” False again. There is a bill with a good chance of passing.

Brian incorrectly wrote, “There are many things President Bush and Congress could do to lower the poverty rate but they don’t do anything. You’re batting zero.

Brian wrote, “They are only interested in helping the rich.” Again with the knowing what someone else thinks. You are gifted. /end sarcasm

Seems you have lots of reading to do. And not on your websites that you have been reading on. What helped me is visiting the library 3 times a week for a full year in 1991. That converted me from liberalism to conservatism.

Just like one individual at at time is doing in the last decade everytime they learn (from alternative sources) that liberals are lying to them.

Brian- did you take into account that;
a. Kennedy cut taxes. Not as sharply as GWB, but a significant amount in those days? He recognized the need to do this in order to keep an economy going, and to assure that people could live.
b. Prior to the “Great Society” we did not have generations on the welfare roll. It was up to families to take care of one another.
c. We did not have the percentage of single parent homes that we have in today’s age.
d. How many illegal immigrants do we count in these figures that we see?

My statement that President Bush is against poor people is not based on what is in his head but by his actions.

My statement that “there are a large percentage of blacks living below the poverty line” was for all blacks in the United States, not “blue states” or “red states”. Under the previous Democratic President the percentage of blacks living below the poverty line in the United States was approximately 33% at the beginning of his administration and approximately 23% at the time he left office. Since President Bush has been in office, the percentage of blacks living below the poverty line has increased. Apparently the conservatives’ method of “teaching an able-bodied person how to fish rather than give him fish” does not seem to be working very well, although in many cases it seems more like the conservatives’ method is abandoning an able-bodied person rather than teaching him to fish.

As for the poverty level of blacks in “red states” vs. “blue states”, I don’t have any statistics, but I seriously doubt that blacks living in Mississippi or Alabama have a much higher standard of living than blacks living in Massachusetts or Connecticut.

You said: Brian incorrectly wrote, “has been cutting taxes for the rich.”.

You are incorrect. President Bush and the Republicans have been cutting taxes for the rich. I did not say, “President Bush and the Republicans have been only cutting taxes for the rich”. Note how I did not use the word “only”. You are twisting what I said and then saying it was incorrect.

I have not kept track on how much money is spent on Medicaid from one year to the next. I do know that President Bush’s 2006 budget proposes cuts in Medicaid totaling 60 billion dollars over 10 years.

When I said, “but there are no plans by the President or Congress to raise it (the minimum wage), I meant there has not been a bill passed to raise the minimum wage at a future date. As for passing a bill to raise it, I have not seen President Bush pushing for an increase in the minimum wage. He has been willing to publicly push for partially privatizing Social Security but I never hear anything from him about raising the minimum wage.

You said:

Seems you have lots of reading to do. And not on your websites that you have been reading on. What helped me is visiting the library 3 times a week for a full year in 1991. That converted me from liberalism to conservatism.

My views are not based what is said on web sites or what is written in books. My views are based on the condition of this country close to five years after President Bush took over as President.

When George W. Bush became President the federal government’s budget had a surplus of over 200 billion dollars. We now have budget deficits of 300-400 billion dollars. Do you think this is good?

During the previous eight years before George W. Bush became president, the poverty rate declined every year. After George W. Bush became president, the poverty rate increased every year. Do you think this is good?

During the time that George W. Bush’s predecessor, Bill Clinton was in office, the stock market tripled in value. The stock market is now lower than when George W. Bush became president. Do you think this is good?

What books have you been reading in the library anyway? Were you reading conservative propaganda by Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity?

Taking from the rich and giving to the poor has wide appeal. People who produce more than they consume will have a surplus – those who consume more than they produce will continue to be in poverty. The communist state claimed to have the answer but the distance between the haves and the have nots continued to grow and the inability of the state to increase production commensurate with consumption contributed to the collapse of communist governments.
The ideology lives on with pandering politicians who must maintain large numbers of poor people to vote as a single block for more of the same ineffective handouts. Political promises may be very effective in getting out the vote but useless when it comes to evacuating voters.
When the accumulated failures of a political party to govern a community are about to be exposed, sophists and charlatans must ratchet up the rhetoric to divert attention and hinder the search for the truth.

Brian-
Since your views are not based upon what’s written books or on websites, but upon your own observations concerning the condition of this country, I would like to know how extensively you have traveled this nation during the past five years and the previous eight years. I must admit I rely upon books for things like poverty rate, government spending, and stock market activity. Could you tell me why this nation had a $200 billion surplus and some people still lived in poverty?

This dust-up has me rethinking the assertion that came out some time back that “abortion has helped lower the crime rate.” When it came out it caused a lot of comment. Perhaps for those people “in the know” this was always meant to say what the hysterical Left is accusing Bill Bennett of saying now.

Those who follow abortion statistics say that Black women abort at the rate of three times the rate that white women do. I didn’t know this until this debate. I do remember being at a political gathering years ago that was much more “liberal” than I was, a woman tried to convince me that legalized abortion was a good idea because it would result in fewer n***** (she did use that word) babies being born to mothers who didn’t know how to raise them. She perceived that I was more conservative than she and thought this would be a winning argument. It wasn’t.

In that state those of us who were pro-life did notice that the people pushing for legalized abortion lived in the wealthier suburbs while the clinics were usually located in the big cities.

What are you talking about? I got a tax cut and I’m not rich. Coincidentally, since that was the case for everybody else, we’ve been able to spend more money and now the economy is hot as a pistol. If Congress doesn’t screw up and let the tax cuts expire, all we have to do is get Alan Greenspan to stop printing money we don’t need and quit jacking up interest rates and our GDP today will look like a joke compared to what would come.

Evon: “Those who follow abortion statistics say that Black women abort at the rate of three times the rate that white women do. I didn’t know this until this debate. I do remember being at a political gathering years ago that was much more “liberal” than I was, a woman tried to convince me that legalized abortion was a good idea because it would result in fewer n***** (she did use that word) babies being born to mothers who didn’t know how to raise them. She perceived that I was more conservative than she and thought this would be a winning argument. It wasn’t.”

Sounds like an incredibly arrogant and naive woman, not to mention racist.

People have nothing better to do than blow the most mundane things out of proportion. This post is not so much a defense of Bill Bennett (because he has nothing to defend) as it is a response to people who keep e-mailing to ask if I’m going to r…

Brian wrote, “Apparently the conservatives’ method of “teaching an able-bodied person how to fish rather than give him fish” does not seem to be working very well,”

Brian, if the president was able to control the economy and how well each individual did within that economy don’t you think he/she would just make it a much better economy? That way they could get elected again. If you knew economics 101 you’d see that the president has very little control of the economy. Your Clinton better Bush worse arguments are childish and based on a lack of understanding of how the economy is controlled by the people with influence by things like taxes and spending by the government as well as the Interest rate and monetary policy.

To delve into your lack of understanding let me ask you two questions:
1) What did Clinton do to improve the economy. Please explain the change in policy and what it’s effect was on the economy
2) What did Bush do to hurt the economy. Please explain the change in policy and what it’s effect was on the economy.

Brian wrote about his ways of speaking, “You are incorrect. President Bush and the Republicans have been cutting taxes for the rich. I did not say, “President Bush and the Republicans have been only cutting taxes for the rich”. Note how I did not use the word “only”. You are twisting what I said and then saying it was incorrect.”

Let’s do an exercise. If I say, I’ve been giving $20 a week to my older daughter, you are correct that it doesn’t say that I’m not giving $20 a week to my younger daughter also. But, when reporting the truth and the facts YOU and the media cannot simply hide behind the fact that they said I’m giving $20 a week to my older daughter and not report the ENTIRE truth the whole truth so help you God. If it is true that I’m giving both daughters $20 per week (which I don’t) then it would be wise to say that unless asked a specific question about the older daughter only.

It is true that every income tax payer and even some non-income tax payers got a tax cut. This has the effect of improving an economy. If you do not think so, instead of getting into a discussion about how you don’t write the whole truth properly, please discuss why you don’t think tax cuts for every income tax payer improves the economy. What is the cause and effect of allowing every income tax payer the ability to keep more of what they earned? Realizing again that 96% of income taxes are paid by the top 50% of income earners, it is a non-conversation to talk about rich getting tax cuts as if the poor can ACTUALLY receive an income tax cut. Below a certain income they don’t pay income taxes.

Brian wrote, “I have not kept track on how much money is spent on Medicaid from one year to the next.

That my friend was obvious. You made an incorrect accusation which would be nice if you retracted it.Medicare facts

Brian wrote, “When George W. Bush became President the federal government’s budget had a surplus of over 200 billion dollars. We now have budget deficits of 300-400 billion dollars. Do you think this is good?”

Brian, again, economics 101. The surplus is due to the federal government’s revenues outpacing expenditures due to the booming economy. The economy’s health has little to do with who is President. I can understand people believing this but it simply ISN’T true. And the economy started falling before Bush got into office. I’m not blaming Bill Clinton. I’m simply saying that yes more people will be in poverty when the economy goes down. And the exact right thing to do in a down economy is to lower taxes. Do you Brian dispute that? Please explain why you think lowering taxes for all income tax payers would hurt the economy. We’d all love to see this logic. /end sarcasm.

Really, who’s race-baiting now? I don’t have to defend everything that a noisy Democrat or two says, anymore than every Republican has to answer for David Duke being a Republican candidate a decade ago.

But ST, the Bennett remarks are offensive on at least two counts. It isn’t so much that he used a rhetorical straw man and then shot it down. It’s the color of the strawman he drew that was the problem…in his repeated self-defenses, I heard him keep talking about reducing crime by aborting pregnancies among blacks. It’s that connection…portraying the face of crime as black that was so disgusting.

As a person who also holds dear the value that we shouldn’t misuse good social science and science research for political ends, I also thought his portrayal of the argument of Freakonomics to be dishonest. The ONLY thing that the book showed was that there is a statistal connection between the legalization of abortion and a reduction in crime rates 20 years later. It categorically DOES NOT advocate abortion as an answer to crime. The research may highlight a possible danger associated with unwanted children, but in that case, the problem is how to avoid having unwanted children. There are many possible ways to approach that problem.

All in all, I think we’d be better off if both Jesse Jackson AND Bill Bennett would keep their traps shut. At this point, neither seems to have much to contribute except their exceding pleasure at hearing themselves talk.

On your more general theme, I think your little history conjectures ought to at least account for the following:

1) The Southern Strategy
2) The distaste that (largely) white rural and suburban voters have for any issues having to do with strictly urban problems…which in turn DOES lead to disinterest from statewide office holders. Bush didn’t get elected by offering up a platform that promoted revitalization of our urban/industrial core. The evangelicals, without whom he simply could not have one (in much the same way that Dems can’t win without black votes, are largely a rural & suburban demographic in the South and Midwest.

I personally don’t feel Bush is a racist, but I think he’s still terrible for urban dwellers. He’s an out-of-touch silver spooner who doesn’t even have a practical framework for real working and poor peoples’ issues.

3) Not EVERY Republican gets vilified for addressing race. For instance, I think Jack Kemp used to generally be very well regarded for his serious interest in addressing urban issues and economic development. He came at the problem from a very traditionally conservative approach, but he cared enough to show up.

EB, putting BB and JJ in the same sentence just doesn’t work. I hope BB continues to keep talking and doesn’t hush up just because it’s politically incorrect to say some of the things he has to say. I disagree that his comments were racist and I explained why in the Bennett thread we have elsewhwere here.

On Republicans and race, Jack Kemp was an exception to the rule and that’s probably because (if I recall correctly) he didn’t say anything that would offend those who are offended by statements that may be considered inflammatory but were true in nature regardless.

As I recall, Bill Bennett’s remarks were used (and I mean as in the crude definition of use) out of context. The man is no racist! The PC police have been bangin’ on that drum loud and long enough.

There is and never will be equality. That utopian concept is a lovely idea but, it won’t work. Every human on this earth has differing abilities and motivations. Each of them are born unique, some enhanced by circumstance and situation, while some reflect the inverse of that. Mentally, physically, morally, and on and on…..Man has created laws and rules to guide the behavior as to what is acceptable by the herd, forever. It can never change the mindset like the simple concept of respect for self and ones own actions.

We humans have drifted off towards a “feeling” dominated concept as opposed to an action oriented sense of accomplishments. If you’re a man behave as such and likewise women. If taking responsibility was inherent at birth, laws wouldn’t be needed. We can create a law that forbids water to run uphill. Good luck with that and the majority of this PC crap. Words to define last weeks words, to redefine the weeks before that, is an exercise in futility.

The reason for sayings like the old adage “A picture is worth a thousand words”, is because the basis is rooted in the actions of yesterday, today and tomorrow. Show some respect for yourself, your neighbor, your cities and towns, your state, your country and your fellow man in general. Do something good. One thing. One time. Control your mouth and guide your actions in a responsible way. Then you might have a shot at the closest thing to equality, you’ll ever need.